“I’ll make ours,” said his wife, decidedly. “For my own sake.”
“And wot about the others?” inquired Mr. Porter.
“The others’ll be made by the same party as washes the children, and cooks their dinner for ’em, and puts ’em to bed, and cleans the ’ouse,” was the reply.
“I’m not going to have your mother ’ere,” exclaimed Mr. Porter, with sudden heat. “Mind that!”
“I don’t want her,” said Mrs. Porter. “It’s a job for a strong, healthy man, not a pore old thing with swelled legs and short in the breath.”
“Strong—’ealthy—man!” repeated her husband, in a dazed voice. “Strong—’eal—— Wot are you talking about?”
Mrs. Porter beamed on him. “You,” she said, sweetly.
There was a long silence, broken at last by a firework display of expletives. Mrs. Porter, still smiling, sat unmoved.
“You may smile!” raved the indignant Mr. Porter. “You may sit there smiling and smoking like a—like a man, but if you think that I’m going to get the meals ready, and soil my ’ands with making beds and washing-up, you’re mistook. There’s some ’usbands I know as would set about you!”
Mrs. Porter rose. “Well, I can’t sit here gossiping with you all day,” she said, entering the house.